Johnny Brown is an American actor and singer. Brown is a nightclub and stage performer as well as a comic actor, and a regular cast member of the television series Laugh-in. Brown is mostly remembered for his chubby physique, wide ingratiating smile, mobile facial expressions, and easy pleasant joking style. Brown is most famous, however, for his role as building superintendent "Nathan Bookman" on the 1970s CBS sitcom, Good Times. Bookman was often the brunt of fat jokes via the show's main character "J. J. Evans". Brown portrayed Bookman until the series was cancelled in 1979. Other television shows Brown has appeared on include The Jeffersons, Family Matters, and Martin. Brown also used to go to school with Walter Dean Myers when he lived in Harlem as a boy.
Brown is also the father of actress Sharon Brown, who was born in 1962. Brown had earlier established himself in the Broadway musical Golden Boy, starring Sammy Davis, Jr.; his supporting role was in the part of Ronnie and was featured as the lead voice on the show stopping rouser, "Don't Forget 127th Street."
In the early 1970s, Brown starred in a television commercial for the Write Brothers pen, a short-lived product of the Papermate pen company. The commercial consisted of an elaborate musical number, "Write On, Brothers, Write On", led by Brown as a schoolteacher who encourages his chorus line of students to use this pen for their school assignments.